Hubert L. Will, Senior U.s. District Judge, 81

December 11, 1995|By Susan Kuczka, Tribune Staff Writer.

Senior U.S. District Judge Hubert L. Will, who presided over thousands of cases while sitting on the federal bench in Chicago for the last 34 years, died Saturday at his resort home in Oconomowoc, Wis., after a brief illness. He was 81.

Judge Will, who was appointed to the federal bench in the Northern District of Illinois by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, assumed senior status in 1979, which gave him the freedom to select cases he wanted to hear.

A resident of Chicago, Judge Will this year ruled on a notable antitrust case involving the National Basketball Association's efforts to keep Chicago Bulls games off WGN-Ch.9.

But whether it was an antitrust, bankruptcy or tax case, Judge Will always had one goal in mind.

"The thing that my father tried most of his life to do was to seek justice in his courtroom," said Judge Will's son, Jon. "Lawyers who appeared before him always told me that whether they won or lost, when they walked out of his courtroom they believed there had been an honest effort to achieve justice."

A native of Milwaukee, one of Judge Will's proudest achievements, said his son, was winning the 1991 Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, an honor bestowed by judges throughout the country to the nation's outstanding jurists.

He also was awarded the Clarence Darrow Humanitarian Award in 1969 and received honorary degrees from the John Marshall Law School in Chicago in 1973 and the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1994.

After receiving his law degree in 1937 from the University of Chicago, Judge Will joined the general counsel's staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington.

He served in the Army as a captain in World War II, where he received a Bronze Star Medal.

After the war, Judge Will returned to Chicago, where he worked as a partner in a private law firm from 1949 until he was appointed to the federal bench.

*******This paragraph not published ******Judge Will served on the Judicial Conference Committee on Bankruptcy Administration from 1963 to 1972 and on the Commission on the Bankruptcy Laws of the U.S. from 1971 to 1973.*********

In 1981, Judge Will helped found the Federal Judges Association and served as chairman of its Senior Judges Advisory Board. He also conducted seminars for new judges for more than 20 years.

Although he worked on numerous political campaigns before his appointment to the bench and was active in veteran activities throughout his career, Judge Will's most important campaign was a personal one.

He founded the Wendy Will Case Cancer Fund after the 1982 death of his 39-year-old daughter. So far, the fund has raised an estimated $1 million for cancer research.

Besides his son, Judge Will is survived by his wife, Jane; two daughters, Nikki H. Stein and Ami Louise Allen; seven grandchildren; and two step-grandchildren.